


This Lady's Cruelty (the sad steps remix)

by NEStar



Category: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NEStar/pseuds/NEStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The steps of heartache.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Lady's Cruelty (the sad steps remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maidenjedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This Lady's Cruelty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/928438) by [Maidenjedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi). 



Heartache, Anne found, smelled of dust and flowers. It tasted of dry crumbs, of tea. It felt like a splash of water.

It was the soft whispers and the disappointed sighs of Lady Russell that would drive her to the garden or the disused rooms of the Hall. The places where she could claim work and her family would never follow her. 

It was the sharp remarks and the sneering tone when her father or sister spoke of the Navy, always said in company forcing her to wash down her suddenly dry mouthful of cake with a sip of tea.

It was the sound of the linen cloth as she dipped it into the basin and wrung the excess water from it, the way the water mixed with the tears that slipped down her face.

Yet for all the scent and taste and touch that heartache had brought her over the last eight years, Anne discovered there was one thing worse – Heartache felt of hope.


End file.
